Bandit72 wrote:Isn't it. I can't imagine HAVING to have a gun in my house to feel safe at home, jeez.

I dealt with an armed home invasion robbery on Christmas night, 1986 in my condo. It very easily could have gone very bad for me.

I don't have any data to back this up, but I suspect that armed home invaders probably shoot fewer of their unarmed victims than their armed ones. And I also suspect that most armed victims of armed home invasions don't succeed in defending themselves with their weapons.

Of course, even from the way it's talked about, it's clear that none of this is about logic, it's about feeling. One of the things that's strange about the United States is how its citizens FEEL about guns and safety. Much of the rest of the world (outside of rural/farmers) finds the American idea that keeping guns in the house makes you safer crazy. Keeping a gun in the house just seems like an unnecessarily dangerous and potentially fatal accident for someone's child or suicidal loved one waiting to happen.

I'm fine with people wanting to go shoot guns at a recreational range. It's a weird hobby, and I probably would wonder about your mental state a bit, but there are a lot of things like that, but at least the environment is a bit more controlled (though this hasn't stopped lackadaisical deaths at US [and probably other] ranges).

More than 20 people were killed after a gunman walked into a church in a rural community about 30 miles east of San Antonio and opened fire on Sunday, an official said.

The official, Paul W. Pfeil, a Wilson County, Tex., commissioner, said he did not have a total count of the number of dead in the shooting, which occurred at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, but he said it was “more than 20.”

Albert Gamez Jr., another Wilson County commissioner, told CNN that he was told by the police that the gunman was chased into the next county and was killed, but it was not clear whether the police shot him or he killed himself.

Mr. Gamez said he was told by an emergency medical technician that 27 people were dead and 24 others were injured.

He said the victims were still inside the church. Sutherland Springs is a small community where everyone knows one another, he said.

He added: “You never expect something like this. My heart is broken.”

The service at the church last Sunday, which was posted on YouTube, began with a rendition of a song called “Happiness Is the Lord.”

Then the pastor, Frank Pomeroy, told his parishioners — 20 to 30 were visible in the video — to walk around the room and “shake somebody’s hand.”

“Tell them it’s good to see them in God’s house this morning,” he said.

David Keen, a constable in Wilson County, said “there were kids involved” in the shooting at the church.

Sheriff Joe Tackitt of Wilson County told The Wilson County News that a man had entered the church and begun firing.

Megan Posey, a spokeswoman for Connally Memorial Medical Center in Floresville, Tex., said that she did not know exactly how many patients the hospital had received, but that it was continuing to receive more.

The hospital has activated its emergency response team, she said. Information about the conditions of patients was not immediately available.

“We’re sending more officers on the streets to help secure Connally Memorial while they’re bringing the casualties to the hospital,” Constable Keen said.

Joseph Silva, 49, who lives about five miles northeast of Sutherland Springs, said the police had instructed his family and neighbors to stay indoors.

In a phone interview on Sunday afternoon, he described Sutherland Springs as “a one-blinking-light town.”

“There is a gas station and a post office,” he said. “That’s about all there really is.”

Mr. Silva said he had been approached by a woman who said she had two loved ones at the church who were shot.

“There are a number of individuals just weeping and just wanted to know what’s happened to their loved ones,” he said. “Everybody is pretty grief-stricken. Everyone’s worried.”